gender and agency practices in the second languagegender and agency practices in the second ...

257 Pages·2002·0.64 MB·English

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
DATE: August 9, 2002
I, ,
Gergana Vitanova
hereby submit this as part of the requirements for the
degree of:
Doctor of Education
in:
Literacy
It is entitled:
Gender and Agency Practices in the Second
Language
Approved by:
Dr. Deborah Hicks
Dr. Annette Hemmings
Dr. Janina Griffler
Dr. Susan Jenkins
Dr. Mary Benedetti
GENDER AND AGENCY PRACTICES IN THE SECOND LANGUAGE
A dissertation submitted to the
Division of Research and Advanced Studies
of the University of Cincinnati
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION (Ed.D)
in the College of Education
2002
by
Gergana Vitanova
B.S., South Western University, Bulgaria, 1992
M.A., University of Cincinnati, 1996
Committee Chair: Dr. Deborah Hicks
Abstract
This two-year qualitative inquiry examines the everyday language practices of four
couples who acquired English as a second language in the United States. The eight East
European participants were highly educated in their home countries. Two of the couples were in
their late forties and early fifties, and the two younger couples were in their mid-to-late twenties.
Gender and agency are the two focal issues of this project. The researcher was interested
in how these two categories were discursively constructed in the learners’ lived experiences.
Challenging humanistic approaches to agency, which treat the individual as an independent
social actor, the study offers an alternative, Bakhtinian perspective. This framework of agency
emphasizes the dialogic nature of the self, and involves a creative, responsive understanding of
one’s socio-cultural realities.
In becoming speaking agents, the female and male participants voiced different
discourses, and, in this sense, their agencies were gendered. In authoring themselves, for
example, the women adopted discourses of emotions, responsibility, and formal, studial
approaches to learning. However, the women’s emotional discourses were not interpreted as
vulnerability. Rather, they were expressions of agency.
The project illuminates how eight highly educated Eastern European immigrants author
themselves in the second language through negotiating their positions in the L2. The primacy of
language in this process is emphasized throughout the project. Of particular significance to this
study is that the learners’ agencies are embedded in everyday, seemingly mundane language
practices. The negotiation of power between the self and the Other is located within discourse.
Thus, the author recommends that teachers should raise their students’ consciousness of how
discourse positions them in the L2 social contexts. She also suggests that language researchers
should abandon the traditional view of affective characteristics (anxiety, self-esteem, attitudes)
as restricted to the learner. Feelings play a key role in analyzing one’s social position and in
language learning, but they are not “individual.” They originate in the dialogic interplay
between speakers and discourses. Finally, by linking two theoretical frameworks—feminist
poststructuralism and Bakhtin’s view of language and subjectivity—the study also traces a
trajectory for our pedagogic work in classrooms and immigrant communities.

Acknowledgments
I feel privileged to have worked with Dr. Deborah Hicks, my advisor, whose teaching
and research have been a continuous source of inspiration. Without her insight and guidance
when I needed them most, this project could not have been completed. Dr. Hicks introduced me
to Bakhtin, read my drafts, and provided detailed feedback on their content and structure. Thank
you, Deborah, for your careful attention to this thesis and for your encouragement in all aspects
of a graduate student’s journey!
I am also indebted to Dr. Susan Jenkins, who initiated my apprenticeship in Applied
Linguistics, and who continued to support me even when she was working in a different city. A
special thank you to Dr. Janina Brutt-Griffler for her capable mentoring and invaluable advice
whenever I needed them. I will always be your student!
I should certainly express gratitude to Dr. Annette Hemmings, who taught me to enjoy
qualitative research, and who had provided insightful comments on the methodology of this
study. Our discussions on postmodernism have been stimulating. In addition, I would like to
thank Dr. Mary Benedetti for her helpful suggestions throughout my years in the doctoral
program.
This list of acknowledgments would not be complete without recognizing my husband’s
role in this project. His own Ph.D. road has been inspirational. The generous computer assistance
he provided is deeply appreciated. I am also grateful to my parents for planting the values of
literacy and education in me. To my dear grandmother, with whom I read my first book, thank
you!
Last, but definitely not least, I wish to convey my deepest appreciation for the
participants in this study, who opened their homes and hearts to me. Vera, Sylvia, Lydia, and
Natalia, I have learned so much from you! It has been a privilege to be part of your lives.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................................................1
LEGEND OF TRANSCRIPTION SYMBOLS IN DATA EXCERPTS.............................................................4
Chapter 1 Introduction...................................................................................................................5
1.1. Guiding questions.................................................................................................................8
1.2. A note on the design of the following chapters..................................................................12
Chapter 2 Theoretical Perspectives.............................................................................................14
2.1. Introduction........................................................................................................................14
2.2. Current Socio-Psychological Concepts in Second Language Learning: A Critique of the
“Grand” Models........................................................................................................................15
2.2.1. Prevalent Socio-Psychological Models in Second Language Acquisition..................15
Schumann’s Acculturation theory.....................................................................................15
Motivation.........................................................................................................................20
2.2.2. Further critique of the models.....................................................................................23
2.3. Post-humanist approaches to language and the self...........................................................24
2.3.1. Subjectivity and language in feminist poststructuralism.............................................25
The (dubious) possibility of agency in poststructuralism.................................................28
Language and experience..................................................................................................31
SLA studies espousing feminist poststructuralism............................................................31
2.3.2. Dialogic approaches to language and identity.............................................................38
Dialogism and heteroglossia.............................................................................................38
The authoring self..............................................................................................................41
Everyday, lived experiences..............................................................................................44
Chapter 3 Methodology...............................................................................................................47
3.1. Introducing the Participants...............................................................................................49
3.1.1. Vera and Aleksei.........................................................................................................49
3.1.2. Sylvia and Boris..........................................................................................................50
3.1.3. Natalia and Dmitri.......................................................................................................50
3.1.4. Lydia and Peter............................................................................................................51
3.2. Data generation procedures................................................................................................52
3.3. Role negotiation and reflexivity.........................................................................................55
3.4. Data analysis and data management...................................................................................61
3.5. Triangulation......................................................................................................................64
3.6. The neighborhood: an overview.........................................................................................65
Chapter 4 Positionings in the Second Language: Gender, Power, and the Self..........................69
4.1. Caught in a discourse of silence.........................................................................................70
4.2. Discourses of otherness......................................................................................................75
4.2.1. Vera.............................................................................................................................75
4.2.2. Natalia and Dmitri.......................................................................................................79
4.2.3. Lydia and Peter............................................................................................................81
4.3. The linguistic other: L2 as a source of positioning............................................................82
4.4. Gender and sensitivity to positioning.................................................................................87
4.4.1. Vera.............................................................................................................................88
4.4.2. Natalia and Dmitri.......................................................................................................88
4.4.3. Peter and Lydia............................................................................................................90
4.5. Gender and the discourse of emotions...............................................................................91
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Chapter 5 Language Learning and Literacy Practices: Acts of Investment in the Second
Language.......................................................................................................................................99
5.1. Literacy practices in the home country............................................................................100
5.2. Reading practices in the L2 environment.........................................................................103
5.2.1. Reading in the native language.................................................................................103
5.2.2. Reading in the second language................................................................................104
5.3. Language Learning Practices and Beliefs: Acts of Investing in the L2...........................108
5.3.1. Taking ESL Courses..................................................................................................110
5.3.2. Investing in the structure of the L2...........................................................................111
5.3.3. Using a dictionary.....................................................................................................118
5.3.4. Asking for corrective feedback.................................................................................119
5.3.5. Asking for input (data elicitation strategies).............................................................119
5.3.6. Using compensatory strategies..................................................................................123
5.3.7. Monitoring.................................................................................................................124
Chapter 6 Reflective Language Practices: Gender and Linguistic Authority............................129
6.1. Metalinguistic discourses.................................................................................................129
6.1.1. Vera and Aleksei.......................................................................................................129
6.1.2. Sylvia and Boris........................................................................................................133
6.1.3. Natalia and Dmitri.....................................................................................................135
6.1.4. Lydia and Peter..........................................................................................................140
6.2. Gender and linguistic authority........................................................................................143
6.2.1. Vera and Aleksei.......................................................................................................143
6.2.2. Sylvia and Boris........................................................................................................146
6.2.3. Lydia and Peter..........................................................................................................148
Chapter 7 Second Language, Responsibility, and Gender........................................................151
7.1. “In a Different Voice”?....................................................................................................151
7.2. An alternative, Bakhtinian approach to responsibility.....................................................152
7.3. Sylvia and Vera: “Because I feel a responsibility”..........................................................154
7.4. Natalia: meaning facilitation and cooperation.................................................................159
7.5. Discourse Features of the (Responsible) Dialogical Self.................................................165
7.5.1. “You know” as a conversational filler in interlanguage...........................................166
7.5.2. Sylvia: The apologetic self........................................................................................171
7.5.3. Natalia’s responsible self: the use of “we”...............................................................173
Chapter 8 The Relational Self: Zones of Dialogical Contacts...................................................177
8.1. The dialogical self: “When I communicate, I live”..........................................................177
8.2. “Bol’naya tema”: Social relations in the second language..............................................183
8.3. Culture as a dialogic construction....................................................................................186
8.4. The (engendered) dialogical self......................................................................................188
8.4.1. Vera and Aleksei.......................................................................................................188
8.4.2. Natalia and Dmitri.....................................................................................................190
8.4.3. Lydia and Peter..........................................................................................................191
Chapter 9 Acts of Agency: Authoring the Self in a Second Language.....................................196
9.1. Creativity in (re)authoring the self...................................................................................197
9.1.1. Vera’s creative experience........................................................................................199
9.1.2. Negotiating discourses: Sylvia’ s experience............................................................200
9.2. Appropriating new discourses..........................................................................................201
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9.3. Discourses of accomplishment and values.......................................................................204
9.4. Forms of resistance in the L2...........................................................................................207
9.4.1. Talking back: defying monologic discourses............................................................207
9.4.2. Refusing to take up a discourse.................................................................................211
9.4.3. Resistance as laughter and irony...............................................................................212
9.5. Second language and transformation...............................................................................214
Chapter 10 Summary of Findings..............................................................................................217
10.1. Gender and second language use...................................................................................217
10.1.1. Investment in the L2................................................................................................217
Gender and discourses of emotions.................................................................................217
Discourses on learning practices.....................................................................................218
10.1.2. Linguistic authority within the couples...................................................................220
10.1.3. Dialogic responsibility and gender..........................................................................220
10.1.4. Linking dialogical responsibility, emotional investment, and linguistic authority.221
10.2. L2 learning and agency in social realities......................................................................223
10.2.1. The salience of language.........................................................................................223
10.2.2. The role of reflexivity and social awareness in agency...........................................223
10.2.3. (re)Authoring the self: co-development of agency and the L2...............................224
Chapter 11 Concluding Remarks...............................................................................................226
APPENDIX A.................................................................................................................................231
APPENDIX B.................................................................................................................................234
APPENDIX C.................................................................................................................................237
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................238